Night Lights
by Revvie-S
Summary: Sam finds herself in a dangerous situation on a lonely planet. Mild SJ


Night Lights 

The night on this planet was very dark, Samantha Carter thought wearily, much darker than even the darkest nights on Earth.

The planet on which they were currently conducting a recon was near the edge of the galaxy, where stars were few and far between. The planet had no moon. The result of these factors was a night so dark that without her flashlight she could not see her hand right in front of her face.

And her flashlight was fading.

And she didn't know where she was as she tried to find her team before the light ran out completely.

She couldn't raise them on the radio.

Her head hurt.

She didn't see the light of a fire on the horizon in any direction.

She couldn't see anything.

She wasn't even sure if she was walking in the right direction.

This was all her own stubborn, stupid fault.

Walking off to get out of their sight for a few minutes, Sam had found a sheltered spot to answer nature's call. Sheltered spots were hard to locate on this barren planet. As she was starting to walk back towards the guys, something caught her eye further down the ridge.

Why she had just unthinkingly walked off to investigate was now the question she tortured herself with as she took each unstable step.

Because she had lost her balance on a loose, gravelly part of the slope and slid who knows how far and had been knocked out.

Out cold.

For a while.

A long while, long enough for night to descend upon her.

She knew her guys would have looked for her, called to her, gone over the whole area foot by foot.

But they'd missed her somehow, and she had been unconscious and unable to answer their calls.

She sat down out of utter frustration, worried that each step into this inky blackness was taking her further from help and deeper into trouble.

Because she knew she was in trouble.

Her head hurt badly.

So did the rest of her, come to think of it.

She turned the light off to conserve the batteries and tried to think, even though her brain felt like every thought was a millstone being dragged through mud.

She was getting cold and she was shaking.

Sam was beginning to feel genuine fear.

Jack and Daniel were teasing Teal'C about one of the SGC women they had seen him with on several occasions. Teal'C smiled enigmatically and Jack yelled 'aha, that proves it,' while Daniel grinned wickedly.

It began to occur to them that Sam had been gone for too long.

Jack keyed his radio and called Carter but got no reply.

"We need to set up camp before dark. Where is she?" Jack grumbled.

"Jack, give her some more time. She'll be back soon."

And they waited.

And waited.

Until Jack exploded to his feet and ordered them to start searching for her.

But within the hour, darkness had descended.

Too concerned about Sam to set up a real camp, the guys had lit a gas camp lantern to shed some light and were sitting around it debating what might have happened to her and what to do next.

"We can't do anything in this dark, Jack. We'll have to wait until first light."

"Like hell."

"Jack, there's no way we can track her until it's light. We might walk by ten feet from her and still miss her."

"Give me an extra flashlight. I'm going out towards the ridge where we last saw her, and I'm going to radio you every 5 minutes. If we start to lose contact, I'll head back."

Jack wasdisturbed by the fact that they hadn't been able to raise Sam on the radio. It meant one of two things, he reasoned.

She was either out of range due to some interference on this planet, or she was unable to respond.

"You're going to turn around and come back here if the radio begins to fade out, right?" Daniel emphasized.

"Yeah. Be back as soon as I can."

Jack headed determinedly out into the night.

Daniel blew out a noisy breath, fairly certain that Jack wouldn't stop until he found her, which also meant he would most likely not turn around when the coms failed.

She pulled her fatigue jacket as close around her as she could, but it wasn't enough to stop her from shivering uncontrollably.

Her head hurt something fierce.

Something deep inside her, a survival instinct, forced her back onto her feet.

She tried the feeble light again, and although it still worked, the sickly yellow beam did little to help her find a way out of her predicament. She reasoned that she had fallen a long way, so she should go in whatever direction the ground was rising. Stumbling along she half walked, half crawled her way slowly, blindly along a slope that was heading upwards.

Everything hurt.

She could see nothing.

Sam was determined to keep going no matter what, because she was afraid that if she stopped she would never get up again.

Jack was working his way through some rough terrain and the going was exasperatingly slow. He called Daniel and Teal'C again as he topped out on a hill and began slowly working his way down the other side.

Static answered him and he stopped, deeply discouraged, knowing he really ought to turn back now as he had agreed.

He tried the com again.

The static hissed again.

And again.

Then he heard a voice, barely there, just above the static hum.

"Colonel O'Neill? Colonel?"

Jack froze in place and keyed his radio to return the hail.

"Sam?" He called into his radio.

Nothing.

"Sam!" He called again, more urgently.

"Jack!"

He closed his eyes in relief.

"Where are you?"

"I don't know. Head hurts."

Jack was unbelievably frustrated. He could hear her, but he still didn't have any idea where she was.

"Okay, look Sam, I'm coming to get you so just stay put. Do you have a light?"

"What?"

"A light, a flashlight, a match, anything that glows?"

"Flashlight, but it's almost dead."

"Okay, good. Turn it on and shine it around you in a circle. I should be able to see even a poor light in this darkness."

"I'm doing it now."

Jack stretched to his full height and looked in every direction with his own light turned off.

Nothing.

"Sam?"

"Yes sir."

Her voice was so faint he could barely make it out.

"I don't see anything. Listen, turn off your light to save the battery. I'm going to flash my light every 10 steps or so. I want you to radio me when you see a light."

Every minute that passed felt like an eternity to Jack as he went through the tedious process of counting off ten steps, flashing his light around in a full circle, and then repeating the cycle.

Over and over.

"Sam, you still with me?"

"Yes, but I don't see anything."

Her voice was now much stronger than the background static, indicating he was closer to her, and Jack's anxiety began to ease up just a bit for the first time since he had realized she was missing.

"Keep looking," he urged her.

"Roger that."

Step, step, step, step.

Swing the light around in a circle.

Repeat.

Then, finally.

"Sir, I see a light! I think I see you!"

"Okay Carter, now turn on your light again and hold it high so I can find you."

Jack scanned the horizon yet again, but this time his vigilance was rewarded with a very faint gleam shining further down the slope and over to the left.

He worked his way towards it, memorizing its location as the last of her flashlight's batteries faded away.

He suddenly realized that if this planet hadn't been so confoundedly dark, he would have never seen the rapidly fading light.

It was the utter darkness that made any light, however weak, stand out.

"Sam?" He called, no longer using the radio.

"Over here."

Her voice broke and he could hear the tears in her throaty reply as he finally found her in the beam of his flashlight, curled up in a tight, shaking ball on the ground.

The rest was pure reflex.

He immediately went down on his knees next to her, wrapping her cold limbs with his warm arms.

He flung off his jacket and pulled it over her shoulders.

Her cold cheek pressed against his.

His face was buried against her neck.

"What happened?" He asked urgently, not loosening his hold on her.

"I slipped and got knocked out. When I came to it was dark like this."

In her profound relief she was shaking uncontrollably.

"Hey. I've got you, Sam."

Jack felt around on the back of her head with gentle, probing fingers until he located the bump.

"That's quite a lump. You've probably got a concussion."

He opened his back pack and pulled out an emergency blanket and quickly threw it around her.

"Something's interfering with the com, Carter, and I can't raise base camp out here. Do you think you can walk back up the ridge with me?"

"Sure," she answered automatically.

After a few attempted steps it became obvious that she couldn't.

"We'll have to wait until it's light," Jack conceded out loud, hating that there was no way to report to Daniel and T.

He unclipped his backpack and pulled out the sterno and his mess kit, having decided to heat up some water to try and get her warmed up.

"I can do it," Sam mumbled crossly and tenaciously tried to get back upand keep walking.

"We'll just take ten," Jack lied. "...sit down."

It didn't take much pressure on her hand to bring her stumbling back to the ground.

"You're okay, Sam," heassured heras he caught her.

"Now drink this. Careful, it's hot. Drink as much as you can."

After sipping some hot water and then watching Jack silently as he stowed the sterno stove and pot, Sam nodded off, her head elevated on Jack's chest, while his head was propped up on the backpack.

He watched her slip into sleep, but he couldn't close his eyes.

Adrenaline was still coursing through him as he tried not to dwell on the horror of what almost had been. If he hadn't found her when he did, if they'd waited until first light, he knew that it would have probably been too late for Sam, injured like she was, hypothermic and in shock.

He wrapped the emergency blanket around her more tightly and gratefully hugged her to him.

The sun was not over the horizon yet, but the sky was glowing pink and orange, when Jack woke up with a start, waking Sam at the same time.

"Hey, how do you feel?" Jack smiled gently as she raised her head and leaned on one elbow. She looked very confused.

"What's going on? Where's Daniel and Teal'C?"

It took Jack a minute to realize what was happening.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Uhh. I was walking near the top of the ridge. I thought I saw something metallic at the bottom, and that's all. I think I started down to get a closer look. I remember falling into blackness. That's all I remember."

"I guess you really did have a concussion."

He filled her in on the events of the long night.

"Wow, I can't believe I don't remember any of that," she said, amazed.

"It's possible you won't remember this either, tomorrow. You've got a really nasty bump on your head."

Jack's radio burst into life.

"Jack! Jack, answer please!"

With a huge grin, O'Neill responded, "Here, Daniel. We're about halfway down the slope of a hill that's covered in loose stones."

"You just described half the planet," Daniel returned drily.

"Well, you must be close or we wouldn't be in radio range. Something here is messing up the long range coms."

Jack stood up to survey the horizon, and soon after that began to wave his arms over his head, and Sam knew that they were found.

In the darkness of the infirmary, Sam slowly came to an awareness of her surroundings.

Soft night lights glowed greenly at the nurses' desk.

The red monitor indicator lights were lit up like Christmas.

She could see every outline, every bed, every wall.

She could see everything.

Just looking around the drab infirmary was a visual feast.

Even though she was alone in the room, she didn't feel nearly as alone as she had on that planet. An involuntary shudder sped down her spine. She remembered more now about that night but only in patches and flashes.

Head throbbing.

Fear.

The curtain of black around her face.

Icy cold that penetrated to her bones.

Strong arms.

A stubbled cheek pressed against her face and neck.

The steady sound of another human being breathing.

A blanket being wrapped securely around her and the wonderful sensation of warmth returning to her heat-starved body.

His heartbeat under her ear as she slept on his chest.

And words.

"Sam."

"Sam, you still with me?"

"I've got you."

"You're okay, Sam."

And she purposely closed her eyes, smiling, recreating the inky darkness where warm memories now lived.


End file.
